Spark (16 page)

He leads me back to the bedroom where I’m grateful for sedate lamplight. He opens the wardrobe and digs out a folded sheet, unfurling it over his shoulder. “Here’s the game plan.” Brisk and businesslike. “The dress is on its last legs.”

I bite my lip, having lost the power of speech somewhere back in the bathroom.

“No point arsing about.”

He tears the dress from neck to waist, the fabric tugging around me. Air on my skin. A white flourish and Jamie swathes me with the sheet. He moves behind me and reaches through the back to slide the dress off my shoulders. Warm electric fingers. The shreds of material pool at my feet. He frees my arms, tucks the sheet tight, then slips the hair tie from my wrist and gathers the length of my hair up into a loose ponytail. I hold my breath, glad he can’t see my face.

“Hang about.” He fetches the tub of water and places it on the nightstand. “Tip your head.” With hypnotic strokes, he wipes away the blood that has trickled from my scalp. The searing heat feels blissful on the back of my neck and between my shoulder blades. My eyes roll up and I stifle a moan.

“I-I think I’d better lie down.”

In an instant he has me in his arms and on the bed with only a brief stab of pain.

I pant on the pillow. “You do this a lot?”

The shadow of a smile touches his serious mouth. He takes my left hand and keeps his expression purposeful, cleaning away the blood and dirt from the length of my arm, shoulder, neck and collarbone, careful over the grazes and cuts. He leaves a trail of goosebumps with each pass and my heart crashes like a lunatic on padded walls.

The combination of worry, morphine, pain and Jamie makes it hard to think. To find an anchor, I close my eyes, think about Kitty, focus on the tether and reach through the static, scanning for a threatening signal. Other than my amplified anxiety, there is nothing, but then I see flashes, vivid details of the forest, trees blurring, the weight of metal in my hand, the shock of gunfire vibrating up my arm.

I jerk on the pillow and open my eyes. Jamie has frozen where he leans over me with the blood-soaked cloth. “You can
Harvest
,” he whispers.

My head swims. “I thought it was KMT?”

“You shouldn’t be able to do either.”

I rest my hand against the hard swell of his bicep and bring my memory forward. I don’t even need to close my eyes, it’s all there: the moment after the gunshot, the violent impact of the tree branch, the stinging skid on mud-packed earth, the crushing weight of Jamie’s landing.

His sharp breath draws me out of the vision and he sits back, his hand on his forehead. “And you can do both.”

“I guess.”

“You did something to the glass too.”

I cringe. “I was going through the window one way or other.”

“I’ve never seen that before.”

“I can’t control it. Usually it’s glasses or light bulbs and only when I get upset.”

His frown kills me and I can’t help myself. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I wish it wasn’t me. I mean, I wish it was someone good, you know, someone who knew what the hell they were doing, for Kitty’s sake.”

“Evie.”

A tear escapes and I bite inside my cheek for control. “I get that you’re disappointed. You must be devastated.”

His frown softens and he wipes the single track of my tear with the slow graze of his knuckle. “It’s not you. It’s everything. The whole thing’s a bloody nightmare. But it’s not your fault. We don’t even know what it means – you being so far along.”

“No one saves their first.”

“Not that I’ve ever heard of. But you’re nothing like a first timer.”

“Because of some stupid party trick?”

“It’s much more than that, Everton. It’s a sign of your development.” He wads the soiled cloth on the side table and picks up a fresh one, dipping it and wringing it out. “There’s no way you should have picked up on Kitty’s guy, and you’re way faster than you should be. These are good signs.”

“Miriam knew I could do all this stuff.”

His expression clouds. “I suppose it’s one thing to go through it, another to watch someone you love go through it.”

“I don’t think I can forgive her.”

He looks up. “That’s the
Fixation Effect
.” He gives it the soft touch. “She knows excuses mean squat if we think someone’s a threat to our
Spark
. It’s a primal bond. Stronger than anything. Except Synergist Coding.” He keeps his eyes on the job and mutters, “I wonder if that’s an illegal term.”

As he leans over the mess of my right arm, I become distracted by the strong line of his neck and the hollow just beneath the corner of his jaw. He smells so good, I can almost imagine the warmth of his skin. “Synergist what?”

“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is you’ll have to work hard to forgive Miriam. We’ll need her help if we’re going to get you up to speed.”

I shake my head, making myself dizzy. “I have you.” Even through the sedative it sounds too intimate but I don’t care.

“I don’t have her experience.”

“I trust you more.”

His eyebrows lift. “That is saying something.”

As he bends again over my wounds, I watch him with morphine’s freedom from inhibition. Storm-grey eyes. Bronze arms ringed in a language I don’t recognise. Latin? He really has the kind of skin that inspires touch and I ball my hands in the sheet, about to ask what the tattoos mean.

“Do you need me to stop?” He pauses, leaning over me.

“Excuse me?”

He touches his chest, frowning at mine. “Your heart is racing.”

I cover the faithless muscle. “You can hear it?”

“Can’t you?”

“Well, yeah. But it’s my heart. In my chest.”

“You haven’t noticed how your senses heighten … when you’re in the zone?”

I give him a narrow look. “Are you in the zone?”

He smirks but then his eyes move to my forehead and the humour evaporates. Almost tentative, he brushes his fingers across my brow. I don’t need KMH to tell me he’s remembering holding a gun to my head. His frown deepens as though listening for something and he strokes my cheek like it’s an experiment.

Whether by morphine or wishful thinking, the gesture doesn’t seem outrageous. My inhibitions are disabled to the point that I close my eyes for a moment and lean into his cupped palm, enjoying the electric pleasure of his touch. “Mmm.”

His face splits with a slow grin. “You’re stoned.”

Relieved he doesn’t pull away, I hold his gaze far longer than I would have dared drug free. I could look at him all night, if I could just keep my eyes open. “You are so …”

“Hmm?”

I hear the smile in his voice, my eyes closing in a long languid sweep. There’s no coming up. Sleep presses me down into warm, dark, oblivion.

Forty-eight hours ago I nearly ruined everything. Seeing her through the kitchen window, alone, weak, with the brace on her neck, it drove me crazy, made me reckless. I should never have gone so close to the house
.

Now, I keep to the forest, watching, waiting, fixated on the light shining behind her curtain on the first floor. I count the windows to the end of the balcony, where lamplight cuts through the crack. I bare my teeth; the other has moved in there
.

I press my hands into the dead bark of a rotting tree, needing the distraction of every rough edge against my skin, something to drown out the noise in my head and the sick pull in my stomach. Tired. So tired. Closing my eyes brings no relief, only an increase in volume and bloody dreams
.

Pine sap, damp earth, night air; the inhale is everything, one sense that tells me I am real. I can’t trust my eyes, I don’t recognise them – black holes in a pale moon. My ears ring with static. My skin is a lie. Something has taken up residence in me: a foreign voice and everything is wrong. I grip the trunk, the invisible umbilical twisting through the night, drawing poison from a well that won’t leave me. I grind my forehead against the tree and clench my stomach, wishing I could dig my nails through my flesh and gouge it out
.

The spike of electricity slices up my spine and I shove away from the tree with a hiss. There will be no peace–

“Kitty!”

I thrash and sit up on the bed, fully dressed, disorientated by the warm room that isn’t mine, the slick of my shirt and the acrid smell of my own sweat. My feet feel choked in my shoes. I stand and stagger against the wardrobe, pressing my hand over the ache in my ribs. The alarm clock glows – two in the morning, but pain anchors me, giving me my place in time and space. “Kitty.”

I stumble out into the hall, trailing the wall for balance and make my way down to her room. The house is quiet. I wipe sweat from my palm and turn the handle, too afraid to trust the feel of the tether.

Careful, soundless, holding my breath, I slip through the door and shut it behind me. Thanks to Doctor Sullivan’s heavy-duty sleeping tablets, Kitty lies spread-eagled, her head almost off the mattress, one leg right out of the blankets, an arm flung over her face. I clamp my hand over my mouth at the rush of tenderness I feel. The tangible contrast to the sick hate of my nightmare gives me goosebumps and I shake, taking in the proof of life. She’s safe. The tether is strong. It was only a dream, a nightmare, as though I slipped into the skin of the Stray, the same dream I’ve had for the last two nights, since the chase through the forest.

A stirring of blankets, a whimper and Kitty wakes with a start. I bump back against the wall, she gasps at the noise and I dart across the room to clamp my hand across her mouth, afraid she’ll scream and wake the house. “It’s me – it’s just me, Kit.”

Her face strains with terror and she grapples to take hold of me, jerking up in her bed. Muffled cries break beneath my palm. “He’s here! He’s coming!”

“No,” I whisper. “No, Kit. You’re safe. I’m sorry I frightened you. I couldn’t sleep. I was checking to see you were okay. He’s not here. You’re safe.” It’s like I’m rushing to reassure myself, trying to wash away the nightmare taint.

I’m surprised by the strength of her grip considering the sedatives in her system. It’s almost painful, her nails digging into the flesh of my upper arm but it’s her tear-stained eyes that cut me. Fear, split open, an arterial gush of it,
the end, the end
.

I hold her until she believes me and her tension gives out, a slump of faith. She leans her face heavily into my shoulder, the neck foam impeding a proper embrace, and I despise myself for her weeping. She’ll never sleep again because of me.

“This is what it’s going to be like, isn’t it?” Her speech comes muffled and slurred from my shoulder. “Me freaking out every five minutes and losing the plot.”

“I don’t want you to be afraid.” Achingly true but pointlessly stupid, said aloud.

There’s a hysterical hitch in her sobbing, not quite a laugh. “A little less skulking in the dark might help.”

I groan. “I’m so sorry, Kit. I can’t describe what it’s like. I feel better when I can see you, you know?”

She sits back, sniffing and wiping her eyes, her pupils so dilated she could pass for a Shield. “Jamie warned me you might get a bit mother bearish.”

It’s not a bad description for the feral protectiveness that’s overtaken me since Sparking. I shrug. “You will have had enough of me by the end of the week.”

She takes my hand in her cold, tear-dampened one. “Probably. Still, I’m glad it’s you.” She frowns. “Hang on, I mean, I absolutely wish it wasn’t you – for your sake, but for my sake I’m glad it’s you.”

Her words sound familiar but all wrong. She should be shaking her fist at the sky, wailing at the injustice of it all like she had the other night. Imagine being stuck with someone as cosmically useless as me. If I were in her place, I would probably throw myself off the roof to save time. But thinking this is treason, and I want her to believe that I can save her. I need her to believe it so I can believe it too. “Thanks.”

The treadmill rumbles beneath me in the Gallaghers’ gym – a room purpose-built beside the six-car garage, as a dance studio for Kitty when she was twelve years old. It has been overrun by workout equipment since then. I thump away at top speed, ignoring the ghost of pain in my side. That I can move so freely in less than a week blows my mind. Even the stitches in my scalp and arm are ready to come out.

Kitty sits on the weights bench with her journal and pen. It always seems to be in her hands, and I hate to think what her entries are about.
Dear diary, some sicko wants to murder me …

As tired as I am from nightmares, training and the waking reality of my new life, Kitty gives me strength. Her meltdown after hearing there is “only one outcome” ended far sooner than it should have and then she pulled it together – probably for the sake of her parents. I can’t imagine where she finds her courage, but I let it fan my hope for a happy ending.

Seeing Kitty rally gave the whole household a sense of focused determination. Leonard upgraded the security system, installed guns in safes around the house, gave me codes to access them and taught me how to operate the panic room door. Its tomb-like walls of concrete and steel, built into the wine cellar beneath the kitchen, scare the crap out of me. Barb pours her emotion into creating vast quantities of food, which I can’t consume fast enough. Jamie collaborates with Miriam on training techniques to help rebuild my strength, bridging the gap created by my hostility like a proper diplomat.